In article <6aanja$8a7 at ssbunews.ih.lucent.com>, jens at lucent.com says...
> This was about trespassing, right? We've hunted the same land for 25 years and
> a guy bought a 40 acres parcel right in the middle of where we hunted this year
> and posted the land. I use to walk across that property everyday during deer
> hunting and this year I walked around that property. I obeyed the law.
You did do the right thing, but your situation illustrates a growing and
unfortunate trend. This is exactly the reason I removed the "No
Trespassing" signs on my property when I bought it. While I may have had
a "legal" right to refure access to others, I didn't feel I had a moral
right to. Like you said, you use to go through there for the last 25
years. On my property, I didn't feel right in stopping someone else that
may be doing the same on my property.
Years ago (late 20's to early 30's) when my grandfather moved to the UP
(Germfask area) from Grand Rapids, MI (Coopersville actually), he had
over 200 acres. Everyone else had large amounts of property too. None
was posted and they all didn't care about others being on their property.
The only problem my grandfather had, were the neighbor kids that would
continualy shoot deer in his apple orchards. All he did then was talk to
their father and say he was tired of them shooting deer in his orchards
and getting any of it. Needless to say, he started getting a littlew
venison from time to time.
Anyway, the point being, I think people are too caught up in the "MINE!
MINE! MINE!" mindset these days. Granted if they choose to restrict their
property, then we should all obey it. It's just that I'm disappointed in
their decision to do so. Hell, if someone walked across my property,
killed a few grouse, etc., I doubt that I'd even ever know. That being
the case, what harm was done? None. That's the reasoning behind me not
posting my property.
> It's
> quite simple to do. In Wisconsin the law states private property is private
> property whether it is posted or not. Crossing on to private property is
> trespassing unless you have permission. We do something in Wisconsin with our
> land and our nieghbors lands, we kinda share.
That would be nice if we could all get back into that mindset. From what
I've seen, most property owners are like that if they've always had
property in their family or for their whole life. It's the people that
grew up in the city that buy a parcel that feel they have to fence in and
post everything.
> Muskie, why not ask before you
> cross the boundary line, they may give you permission. But of course the little
> kids game of 'you did it to me, so I'm going to do it to you' is alot more fun.
> :) Becareful the second person is always the one who gets caught.